Celebrity Traitors star Sebastian Croft has spoken about being outed as gay at school, saying the experience was so difficult that he left education at the age of 16.
The 24-year-old actor and singer described years of bullying and ostracism at a private boarding school in Oxfordshire, calling it “a weirdly old-school experience”.
Croft said he was outed by a fellow pupil with whom he had been in a secret relationship. He told the i Paper: “I had a really difficult few years. I don’t blame the other boy who did it, because he was obviously just also trying to navigate the fact that he was getting chipped for being gay.”
He added: “But it was a really lonely and difficult time in my life.”
Croft said acting provided a stark contrast to his experiences at school. “I would leave school and be an actor and be doing the thing I loved the most, and be with other like-minded people, and feel so liberated in myself, and then I go back to school and be bullied and ostracised,” he said.
The actor began his career on stage as a child before making his television debut as Young Ned Stark in Game Of Thrones. He is best known internationally for playing Ben Hope in Netflix’s Heartstopper.
His other credits include Horrible Histories: The Movie and the film How To Date Billy Walsh. He is currently appearing in the BBC’s Celebrity Traitors alongside Jerry Hall, Maya Jama and James Blunt.
